Hey guys! How’s your year going? Everybody on track to work on their goals?
Somewhere recently (probably in Beth Moore’s Living Beyond Yourself), I read this great statement about how the Bible doesn’t address self-love in depth because it’s just not conceivable to the authors that a person could not love themselves.
It’s so interesting, isn’t it? We live in a world where a lot of people have self worth issues–and I’m not talking about pride issues or anything along those lines. I’m talking about honestly believing that you aren’t worthwhile or that the world would be a better place without you. Kinda makes you wonder what it is about our society that creates that sort of environment.
Jesus commands us to love others as we love ourselves. I’ve been thinking a lot about how intertwined those two things are: you really can’t love someone else if you don’t love yourself. But you also can’t love yourself if you aren’t loving others. Loving ourselves is that whole “put your own oxygen on first if the plan is crashing and then help others”–we need to take care of ourselves so that we have the resources to love others. On the flip side, truly loving others actually creates resources in our own lives.
Anyway! I was convicted that I don’t do a good job of applying the fruit of the Spirit to my own life–so often, I focus on how to be patient with others all the while being impatient with myself or on how to be gentle with others when I’m harsh with myself. I think that the same way we apply loving ourselves as a natural yin to the yang of loving others, we need to apply the fruit of the Spirit. God is patient with us–so why aren’t we patient with ourselves? God is kind with us–why aren’t we kind with ourselves?
